


Mistletoe and Wine

by athousandwinds



Category: Eight Days of Luke - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: M/M, Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-21
Updated: 2011-01-21
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:52:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke comes home for Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mistletoe and Wine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [innocentsmith](https://archiveofourown.org/users/innocentsmith/gifts).



"Will you come to us at Christmas?" David asked tentatively. He had never thought to make sure how Luke felt about Christmas. He vaguely remembered something from school about Christianity nicking a pagan tradition (they'd had a New Age-y kind of R.E. teacher, until she was sacked after one term), but Luke generally approved of stealing.

"If you like," Luke said. He flicked Astrid's lighter open and shut, open and shut. "Don't forget to light a candle for me."

"You can have dinner with us," David said. "I'll tell Astrid you're coming, so we can get a bigger turkey."

"I'll help you cook it," Luke said carelessly. "You can sacrifice it in my name, not Freyr's."

David blinked at him. "I wasn't going to sacrifice it in anyone's name."

"All right," said Luke, "but if you do, sacrifice it in mine. Deal?"

Luke came at Christmas, much to Astrid's joy. David escaped into the living room while they were talking about foil-wrapping and stared up at the ceiling. Someone - not Astrid, surely, who hated it - had wrapped a sprig of mistletoe around the lampshade.

Luke's face appeared above his. "You can come back in, now. It's safe."

"I'm fine," David said, looking up at him. Luke kissed him. It was a long time before they said anything else.

It wasn't until dinner that Astrid noticed the mistletoe. "Oh, _no_ ," she said, sounding so annoyed that even Luke stopped eating. "Who put that up there?"

"Sorry," said Luke, and it vanished. He got up to kiss Astrid's cheek. "I've always found mistletoe very useful." He seemed to be laughing at a private joke; David wondered what it was. Not about him.

"It's a parasite," Astrid said, flushing a bit. "Really, it's a horrible tradition."

"Ronald was a horrible person," Luke said with a kind of calm certainty that David alternately loved and envied. "Don't mind him, just have some fun for yourself."

"Thank you for the pep talk," she said, but she seemed a little happier.

She left them alone that evening to go and meet up with Siegfried. Luke called after her, "Don't _eat_ the mistletoe! It's poisonous!" Astrid shot him a bright red glare and he laughed.

"That was mean," David said, but only because he felt dimly that he should be defending Astrid's honour.

"Don't be an idiot, she can look after herself." Luke threw himself down on the couch beside David. "Siegfried won't be bothering her with it, anyway. He's never needed to wave mistletoe at people to get kissed."

"And you do?"

"Nah," said Luke cheerfully, "that was just because I could."

"How did it get started?" David asked. "The kissing thing, I mean. If it's poisonous."

"People didn't always know it was," Luke informed him, and when David looked incredulous, he nodded. "The druids." He didn't say anything more about them. Perhaps he didn't want to make fun of his own worshippers; only Luke, David thought, made fun of everyone. Especially people who liked him.

"It means good luck in Romania," Luke said. "And if you hang it all year round, it'll protect the house from lightning or fire."

"I thought you did that."

"Every little helps." Luke smirked at him, and David leant over to kiss him again. That one, too, went on for a while and it was much later, when Luke was lying half on top of him, that David remembered a useless fact that'd been nudging at his mind for the last couple of hours or so.

"Luke," he said cautiously. It was always wise to be careful when asking Luke about his past; sometimes the most unexpected things caused him to become alien. "Who was that god, the one who got killed - ?"

"Go to sleep, David," came Luke's voice, drowsy and amused. But it wasn't Luke who was tired, all of a sudden, and David could feel his eyes closing without him wanting them to.

When he woke, Luke was gone. But the mistletoe was back, twined round the light, and, try as he might, David never did manage to take it down.


End file.
